When Robbin Kelley, the Harwich Cemetery administrator, first came up with the idea of buying a ground-penetrating radar to survey the cemeteries in town, many people said it was too expensive. The $20,000 piece of computer equipment, wheeled around in a device that looks somewhat like a baby stroller, uses radar waves to peer up to 10 feet underground and display images of what lies beneath the surface.

Jamie Balliett

When Robbin Kelley, the Harwich Cemetery administrator, first came up with the idea of buying a ground-penetrating radar to survey the cemeteries in town, many people said it was too expensive.

The $20,000 piece of computer equipment, wheeled around in a device that looks somewhat like a baby stroller, uses radar waves to peer up to 10 feet underground and display images of what lies beneath the surface.

Kelley was intrigued when she first saw the radar at a demonstration. She felt that the price would be paid back through sales of vacant plots found throughout town.

And two years after purchasing the equipment, she was right.

“It’s almost paid for itself,” Kelley said of the radar, manufactured by Geophysical Survey Systems of Salem, N.H.

In fact, the radar has been so popular that communities outside Harwich have been renting the radar ($950 for a full day, with staff).

There’s even a waiting list of more than a half-dozen towns for underground scans.

Paul Doane is chairman of the Harwich Cemetery Commission. He said credit should go to Kelley for her “forward thinking.”

Given the older age of the town’s cemeteries, records aren’t always available as to what was buried where, explained Doane.

“It’s enabled us to find a significant number of (cemetery) plots that were unused,” he said. “In a few areas, we found that parcels with 12 plots only had four in use.”

There are currently 70 acres of cemeteries in Harwich, 17 of which are owned by the town. With limited space, this radar helped save the town money by temporarily halting expansion plans, which may include clearing or land purchases.

“The option to buy land, especially, can be very expensive on the Cape,” noted Doane.

Kelley, as well as highway department employee Brian Albee, both received advanced training in how to run the radar. Although it’s easy to wheel the device around a parcel, the real work happens once the data is taken back to the office.

“The difficult part is when we need to present the information found – you can look at it layer after layer and each one can turn up new things,” said Kelley.

For the most part, the area’s sandy soil helps with any radar effort. When the data is presented in a grid, shapes come into form. A mid-sized rounded object is likely a stone. A rectangular one – with the familiar angles and dimensions of a coffin – is noticeable, even after a century in the ground. Other discoveries include headstones that have been buried by accumulating dirt over time.

Other uses for the radar have included looking for pipes underground for the town water or public works departments. Large cemetery surveys have also been performed in Sandwich and Dennis. Both also found significant numbers of vacant plots.

Meantime, Kelley has recently gotten equipment upgrades for the radar. She can now also see images on a monitor while out in the field.